Are We Going to Get the Coin?
The politics on the trillion dollar coin are fluid. Don’t believe anyone who tells you they know for sure.
The United States is about to hit the debt ceiling. Last Friday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced that the Treasury would hit its debt ceiling this week. It will be able to take “extraordinary measures” to pay the nation’s bills until June, at which point the nation will default if the ceiling is not raised or suspended. Already, House Republicans are claiming that they will not raise the ceiling unless Democrats in the White House and Senate agree to extraordinary spending cuts throughout the economy.
Republicans, of course, have wanted these deeply unpopular cuts for years. But they do not want to take any responsibility for slashing Medicare or Social Security. Republicans did little to slash entitlement spending when they had a governing trifecta. Indeed, the party often runs election ads arguing that Democrats are the ones endangering Medicare and other entitlements. Republicans routinely hold the debt ceiling hostage so that their opponents have to make cuts under their governing watch. They know that Democrats do not want the alternative: a massive recession caused by the country’s unwillingness to pay their debts.
As a result of this recurring nightmare, the favorite solution of Democrats and policy wonks has reemerged…